It's easy in a novel to be completely unambiguous about the relationship between animal and daemon simply by stating it outright; whereas you get very few opportunities to do this in an elegant way in a film.
All I can say is that with 'The Golden Compass,' I didn't get to make the movie I had planned to make. When I look at the film, at the casting and certain scenes, I'm very happy. As for the final product, I can't vouch for that.
The Internet is a fantastic, strange place where you can write an open letter and be reasonably assured that people are going to read it.
To be emotionally resilient and to overcome your circumstances, not through fighting, but through being courageous and having endurance was something I thought was of primary importance.
Don't you get it? It's the end of the world! That's exactly when you fall in love. When else?
I often make movies that involve depression or deep holes of sadness, although there are also these other great things in 'New Moon,' like this epic set-piece at the end of the film in Italy.
People always want the stars of movies to fall in love with one another.
Modern responses to Cinderella's predicament are interesting. If you're not careful, you'll think, "Well, she's just a big wimp. She should fight for her rights. She should call the government."
I try to put out fires when bizarre rumors get started.
I love being by the ocean. It stills the voices in my head.
I am a surfer, though quite a poor one.
The reason that stepmothers are often the bad guy in fairy tales is because people died in childbirth, all the time, so fathers remarried and there would be a struggle between the children and the new wife, in terms of who would inherit what.
'The Golden Compass' became a bad experience because the studio didn't have faith in the strength of the ideas of the novel, which is ironic because it's one of the greatest fantasy novels ever written, if not the greatest, and they took the religion out of it and tried to turn it into a popcorn movie.
Having been dumped so many times in my life, I thought I could sympathize with Bellas character.
The reason I make movies now has a lot to do with having seen Star Wars when I was seven years old. That's the formative movie-going experience of my life.
I think it's so incredibly special to be able to try to recapitulate that feeling I had when I was sitting in that theater, as a 7-year-old. It's an extraordinary job. I'm incredibly lucky.
People like to be able to identify a brand, and I don't really have one.
